What a strange life.
This past couple of weeks I've broken through to the other side -- the other side of dining in restaurants again, rather than ordering for delivery. And it has been nice.
I've found that looking forward to lovely meals, the social experience of being out in vibrant city life, along with indulging in simple yet elegant fashion is a serious saving grace to life lately. I even finally bought myself a new pair of walking shoes.
So on this day of longest light, I'm reflecting on the past twenty years of our lives since I became a mother, and ultimately also functioning as a father as well. It has been a long and beautiful journey. It is surreal to me that both of my children are now high school graduates and college students. College students! I must be old. Except --
I'm not so old. Somewhere around age 28 I realized I would need to let go of having a social life, pursuing music and performing with a band, and a great many other things because raising kids is simply a lot of work. When my kids were very young, I remember being grateful if I could get 17 seconds of uninterrupted guitar playing in. I would try to stretch it to 48 seconds and call it a success if I did. And I learned to let that be enough, because that is what life demanded from me. There would come another time to write the songs.
I told myself not to worry, once my kids are grown, I will still be young, and can pick up where I left off. What exactly that means now, I am not quite sure -- though I did still manage to hold on to the songwriting through the years, though much of it is in pieces and tatters. But it is there. I know that with a summer of quiet reflection, I will have a good sense of what to do with myself as my kids become preoccupied with their own lives and goals and dreams.
A time for reinvention.
So today, on this solstice, on a Father's Day when all the fathers are gone from our lives, and as we come out of the straits of a pandemic, I will let simple things be enough and just coast. Coast a while and appreciate all that we have survived.
And enjoy the sunlight on this longest day of light.
Pond dwelling on a day of longest light
&
for the astronomical summer storm at midnight.
